Experts Claim Rise in Themed Malware Assaults

According to a recent research undertaken by Internet security firm Panda Security, it has been learnt that hackers developed thousands of websites that ranked high in search engines, in order to infect the systems of users who clicked on them. The firm further said that the connection between this online hoax and various events on the social calendar is increasing.

The firm's technical director Luis Corrons said that if we consider topical events like Valentine's Day, swine flu and Michael Jackson's demise, a general surge in malware and hacking techniques related to these events has been witnessed, as reported by IHOTDESK on November 3, 2009.

The director also explained their efficacy by stating that an unsuspecting user won't be able to judge the malicious link, and as a result, cyber crooks most often launch such type of attacks.

Meanwhile, according to the firm, though the Halloween is over, online attack threats like incidents of data breaching are still expected to frighten many people of the IT department.

Events like Halloween are being used as a base by cyber crooks to attack Internet users worldwide. The firm found that hackers, for October 31, were engaged in their task to set up numerous webpages that may be returned as the first results by famous search engines.

In fact, many of these websites are platform to distribute fake anti-virus programs and unwary users install them on their systems after downloading them. Innocent netizens are being tricked by these fake software, which send aggressive messages and claim that their computers are infected. The software further advice the users to purchase a license for the program. Then, a single click made by the user will redirect him/her to malicious webpage.

Therefore, the companies must be cautious of IT threats which come into light from suspicious corners of the Internet. Also, in order to defend themselves from the risks of malicious webpages, the companies should use Web filtering products.

Apart from this, in October 2009, Sunbelt Software claimed that malware attacks based on the Halloween have become more widespread as an increase in the event-related hacking attacks has been seen after the past two years.